BLACK TIDE
By Rei Nishimoto
Sonic Youth
Still in their teens, the members of Black Tide already have bragging rights for playing Ozzfest’s main stage last summer. The Miami thrash act, however, came close to missing out on the whole tour.
“We were supposed to play the second stage and then we got kicked off,” explains guitarist Alex Nunez. “Then we got placed on the main stage. That was insane.”
Black Tide had secured an Ozzfest slot until second stage sponsor Jagermeister realized that none of the band members — who are still in their teens — were old enough to buy alcohol. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the up-and-coming metal foursome was reassigned from second stage to the coveted main stage, opening up for Lamb of God and the Ozzman himself.
“At first, we were an unknown band, but it eventually went well,” Nunez says. “We never got booed. I saw Lordi got booed a couple of nights!”
With their major label debut Light From Above scheduled for release this month, Black Tide will showcase a classic ’80s metal and rock sound far beyond their years.
The band came together in middle school, playing backyard parties until the group could get club shows. All four members are currently under the age of 20, with lead vocalist Gabriel Garcia being the youngest at 15. Light From Above’s first single, “Shockwave,” exemplifies the band’s signature Reagan-era thrash sound — think Kill ‘Em All-era Metallica — with solos galore.
“We’ve been playing [‘Shockwave’] for years,” Nunez says. “When we went into the studio, we had to rearrange [it] and go through pre-production stuff. On ‘Shockwave,’ there were two things added and that was it. It’s pretty much the same exact way we’ve been playing it.”
“That song’s getting pushed so much,” he adds. “That’s the song people could recognize the most. It’s the first song we start off with. Everyone likes it.”
Eighties-era riffing wasn’t the first style the band gravitated to during its formative years.
“We started off playing pop-punk stuff,” Nunez reveals. “One day, Gabriel’s cousin started showing him Guns N’ Roses and stuff like that. It turns out that my brother liked the same stuff. I burned his Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin records. We started getting into classic rock like Zeppelin and AC/DC…We started playing stuff that sounded like Judas Priest. Now people say we sound more like Metallica and Megadeth.”
Still, the band’s name actually comes from another love, skateboarding.
“We had Radio [their original band name] for a long time,” explains Nunez. “We wanted to change the name. Everyone kept coming up with ideas, but we could never agree on ideas for names. Somebody said Black Tide. That sounds cool…What kind of meaning would it have? We all like skateboards and that’s how we became friends. Surfers have their tide. For skateboarders, that’s our wave.”
On the web: blacktidemusic.com
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